Aftermath
by Glory of Dawn
Summary: In the wake of a trying mission, Lt. Kari Nilsen deals with survivor's guilt. Rated T for language.


**Hey. So I just bought the expansion to XCOM: Enemy Unknown (being XCOM: Enemy Within) and have been playing it through. On one of the new special missions they put in with the expansions, some real shit went down, and I got some inspiration from it which I am channeling in the form of this one shot. I suppose there are three things you need to know to fully understand this fic, and two of them are unnecessary if you play the game: First, you need to know what a Chryssalid is. A Google image search should do nicely. Second, lethal wounds from a Chryssalid cause zombification. Third, Kari Nilsen is a Sniper, while Jonas Vandenberg is of the Assault class.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing XCOM.**

* * *

><p>"Hey, Nilsen."<p>

Kari opened her eyes and looked to the door of her room in the infirmary. Jonas Vandenberg was leaning against it. He wore fatigue pants and a white T-shirt. His face was smiling, but his eyes weren't.

"Hey, Jonas," she said weakly.

"How you holding up?" he asked as he came into the room. He sat down next to her bed.

"Chryssalid had a damned sharp claw. Nearly tore my guts right out of my body."

"Ah, don't be a baby. You'll be all right. Doc said there were no signs of poisoning at all. Barely clipped you."

"Yeah, me," she said, looking down. She had made it to the plane out of Newfoundland.

"Don't start thinking it," Jonas warned. "It's only downhill from there."

She choked back a sob. "Don't start thinking it?" she said. "Joe, I've been in here for five days while they're at the bottom of a water-filled crater. It's all I CAN think about."

"That's not your fault," he said. "Not mine either. This is war. Shit happens."

"That wasn't shit," she said. "That was slaughter."

"We had no idea that Chryssalids could incubate outside of a human host. Hell, we had no idea about anything that was going on in that village. We knew that going in." He paused for a moment. "We knew the risks."

"It wouldn't have happened if Payne was there. She could have kept the others alive. Instead, she was off playing spy with EXALT." Kari spat the name.

"Hey, don't you hold that against her, she was on orders. She's our best covert operative. I know it, you know it, and the Commander knew it when he sent her to Saskatchewan. That's not her fault."

"She could have saved them," Kari said quietly. "I know she could have."

"Kari, don't do this to yourself. We can't change the past. We went in the best equipped we could with the best people we could under the conditions."

"Serrano had been here a week, Jonas!"

"And we got him from the damned Rangers! Nobody here is a lightweight, Kari! We took him because he was the best newbie we had, and Disco and Munoz were getting their plasma burns treated!"

"And look where that got him! How do you live with that, Jonas? How do you watch a twenty year old kid screaming for his mother while a Chryssalid goes for his throat? A CHRYSSALID THAT HAD BEEN COMING FOR ME?!"

"He saved your life, Kari, don't cheapen it."

"He thought he was going to kill the thing, Jonas! And then his rifle jammed, and he died! What the hell was he doing with a ballistic weapon, anyways? Where was his laser rifle?!"

"The lenses had shattered and were being repaired. They were in the armory, just like that new sniper rifle they had been working on for you. The call came in, and we had to answer it then and there. We didn't have time."

"Oh, that's a real comfort! We didn't have time! You know what, maybe if we had taken an extra twenty minutes and rushed the laser sniper, I would have been able to down the second pack before they ripped Buster and Dumont to shreds! And do you know what happened then, Jonas?!"

"I was there, Kari," he said quietly. "I know what happened."

"Damn right you do! I had to put a bullet through their brains, Jonas! I had to scope my friends and blow their FUCKING HEADS OFF! HOW FUCKED UP IS THAT? HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LIVE WITH THAT, JONAS?! HOW?!"

Jonas rested his head in his hands. "And maybe if I hadn't had to reload when I did, the whole thing could have been avoided. But you know what, Kari? I did have to reload. And you didn't have your laser sniper. And the prototype heavy lasers were still in testing. But what does it matter? Why beat yourself up about it? The best thing you can do to honor their memories is to do a shot for them at the Memorial on Sundays with the rest of us and then go out and kill every alien and EXALT son of a bitch there is, and when we win this war, they will rest in peace."

Kari was quiet now, and spoke softly. "What if we don't win, Jonas?"

"Don't say that."

"Look at us. Our casualty rates are barely going down since the invasion started, and the best we can do to get ahead is wait for Dr. Vahlen to reverse engineer their technology. Meanwhile, they abduct and pillage all over the globe with nobody to stop them but us, and we can't be everywhere. We can hardly take on a Chryssalid hive, Jonas, how are we supposed to deal with all of this? What if, one day, we're running down a street, and there are more than two Seekers? What if they're backed up by a Mechtoid, or a pack of Chryssalids, or something we haven't seen yet? We'll lose."

"You look at me, Kari."

She didn't.

"Kari, look at me."

She clenched her hands into fists, and sobs were coming back to haunt her.

"Dammit, Lieutenant, I gave you an order. Look. At. Me."

She snapped her head to him, angry tears streaming from her eyes.

"We are going to win this thing. We are going to win because EXALT is full of half-mutant retards, and the aliens are alternatively too weak or too dumb to take us on as a team. We will get better weaponry. Hell, Dr. Shen is working on a mech suit for us right now, and Dr. Vahlen is cooking up some weird-ass cybernetic shit with all that Meld we've been collecting. And who knows? Maybe we'll figure out how the Sectoids link their brains like they do, and we'll find a way to use it to help ourselves. We can win this, Kari, but you have to believe." He lowered his voice now, looking over his shoulder at the open door. "And I promise you, if those newbies that got in yesterday see you freaking out, it is going to freak them out. You're our best sniper, and probably our best shot. You've been with XCOM since the project began. There is one other living person who can say that, and she's in China right now, doing more counterops against EXALT. You have four different medals, one of which you got for prevailing over six Thin Men by yourself after they had downed the rest of your squad. Six. That's crazy, Kari, because I'm sure you and I both know those fuckers don't miss often."

Kari was shaking and crying freely. "I just...I can't, Jonas. I can't. Shooting Buster and Dumont after they were zombified...hearing Serrano crying for his mom...and Malnikova getting caught when we were running back to the Skyranger...And we just kept running, Jason." She looked at him. "We kept running while she begged us to come back for her. We left her to die."

Jonas put a hand on Kari's shoulder. "Kari, we were both out of ammo. We were completely dry. Remember? And I was already carrying you back to the Skyranger. You were half-dead from blood loss. If I had turned around right then to get her, that Chryssalid would have gotten us all. Him or his friends. It's hard. I know. But we have to carry on." He sighed. "Look, I'm on leave for a few days because of the ricochet that hit my leg. My sister just mailed in some of my mom's chocolate and a few movies. I'll bring it all back here with a big bottle of booze, and we'll drink ourselves stupid for the sake of our fallen friends. Sound good?"

Kari was still crying, but she smiled weakly. "Can't say no to Belgian chocolate," she said. "And God knows I could go for a drink right now."

He patted her shoulder. "Good deal. Back in ten."

"Jonas?"

"Yeah?"  
>"Thank you. I...I needed that."<p>

"No problem."

He started to leave, but Kari called him back. "Oh, Jonas?"

He stopped and laughed. "What now?"

"How did it go? In Saskatchewan. I was told you guys had to go to bail Payne out."

Jonas grinned. "Yeah, with a full squad of newbies, too. Everyone else was down for the count. They did fine, though. Just a few minor bullet wounds. Half of them think Payne is some sort of goddess of war now. She was walking through that field, ignoring cover and putting down EXALT goons in nothing but a spring jacket and a pair of jeans." He laughed again. "And honestly, after seeing that, you could probably convince me that she was."

Kari smiled a little more. Just bullet wounds. That was good.

"All right, I'm going to grab the goods, I'll be back."

"Yeah, okay."

Just bullet wounds.

Flashes of blood-spattered purple chitin invaded her mind, of her dead friends walking towards her with every intention of pinning her to be a carrier herself. She watched Serrano's throat ripped out again, heard Malnikova crying for help.

Just bullet wounds was _very _good.

* * *

><p><strong>And there you have it. Just a short little inspired blurb. Not sure how good it actually is, but who knows.<strong>

**If any of you are strays from Tsumeki-chan, by the by, I AM alive and I am working on it. The delay will be explained upon the posting of chapter 9, which I'm hoping I'll be able to finish within the month.**

**Thanks for reading, all.**


End file.
